The chairman of the Irish Bishop's Committee on European Affairs, Bishop Joseph Duffy, said yesterday that fears of a new European superstate following a Yes vote in the Nice referendum flew "in the face of everything the EU stands for, and has stood for since the beginning". Both "the experience of the member-states so far and the essential dynamic of the Union itself rule out imperialism.
He continued: "However, it must be said that if at some time in the future the process of integration were to be diverted into one of centralisation and/or militarism, it would obviously have to be vigorously resisted. As of now there is no evidence that this is being contemplated. But there is, of course, no knowing what the future may bring."
Dr Duffy, who is also Bishop of Clogher, was speaking at a seminar organised by the Irish Catholic in Holy Cross College Clonliffe, Dublin, yesterday. The Irish electorate was being asked to "to consider the common good of Europe as a whole and to recognise the legitimate aspirations and expectations of the applicant countries", he said.
They were being asked to remember "that the principle of solidarity at the heart of the European Union project is much more than a means of reaching a cosy agreement within a closed group; that it's a basic precept of the Christian Gospel that reaches out to everybody. Church people from applicant countries whom I have met during the past year are invariably puzzled by the result of the last referendum which failed to meet their view of Ireland as a Christian country. I am not saying they are right or wrong in their assessment. I am merely reporting what they tell me," he said.
Both sides of the debate tended to confine attention "to matters of narrow and national self-interest". This also happened last year, he said. And, whatever the personal reactions to the arguments of those professionally involved in the present campaign, "we are all challenged to confront the \ deficit of trust as a potentially destructive force in our society", he said. There were "highly competent and trustworthy people on both sides", he said. And there were many competent and trustworthy people who worked hard and who continued to work hard at all levels to make a success of the EU, he added.
Clarifying "the specific role the church claims for herself in discussing political questions", he said "she cannot be indifferent to the values that inspire the various institutional decisions. By values here, and this is the crucial concept, I mean a particular way of respecting the human person, society and the common good, or put more simply, a vision of human dignity."
He drew attention to what Pope John Paul said earlier this year to a European Study Congress in Rome. The Pope gave a list of Christian values which have formed the European identity throughout the centuries. The list "sets out explicitly an agenda for the church regarding the European Union", he said. "There are in all seven sets of values mentioned: (1) the sacred character of human life, (2) the central role of the family founded on marriage, (3) the importance of education, freedom of thought, of speech and of the profession of personal convictions and religion, (4) the legal protection of individuals and groups, (5) the collaboration of all for the common good, (6) work seen as a personal and a social good, (7) political power understood as a service, subject to law and reason and limited by the rights of the person and of peoples." The Pope then outlined a vision that drew these values together by giving them what he called "a deeply-rooted transcendence". Or, as Bishop Duffy put it, this meant "a sense of God."